Medical therapies may require the targeting of the therapy to a targeted patient site to maximize the therapeutic benefit and/or minimizing adverse effects to other organs or tissues outside the targeted patient site.
Huss & Reinhardt, U.S. Pat. No. 4,968,306 describes an elongated catheter assembly for intravascular delivery of intravenous therapeutic fluids. This assembly has a distal end having multiple pores which is sheathed by an outer proximal segment for variable exposure of delivery surface area by sliding the distal segment from the outer proximal sheath. A disadvantage of this assembly is that it results in a lack of homogeneity of pore placement and pore number for fluid discharge, which indicates a pore size of 2–20 microns.
Delgado, U.S. Pat. No. 3,640,269 describes a fluid delivery assembly having two flexible fluid-impermeable tubes open at one end and provided with an enlarged flexible permeable bag at the delivery segment. This bag is comprised of a membrane having uniform porosity less than 0.5 microns and having a water permeability of at least 60 mL/minute/cm as a description of fluid permeability. While this design is capable of uniform fluid delivery to tissues adjacent to the permeable bag, a disadvantage of this assembly is its inability to be specifically targeted to a patient site due to the flexible distal bag.
Thus, there is a need for a device that provides uniform distribution of therapeutic agents to a targeted patient site or multiple targets sites. There is also a need for a device that provides this uniform distribution, yet has sufficient rigidity for accurate placement of the device so that it can deliver therapeutic agents to the targeted patient site or multiple sites.